


all that is in a name

by multitudinous



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Love Confessions, aged up!damian, fem!reader - Freeform, implied that reader is south asian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28661970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multitudinous/pseuds/multitudinous
Summary: You come to him, and his name is on your hand like you’re showing off to the world that you’rehis. Damian doesn’t know if he can handle it.
Relationships: Damian Wayne/Reader
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	all that is in a name

**Author's Note:**

> hello! first damian fic, first dc fic, first fic on this account in general so please be gentle with me :)

Damian notices it as soon as you greet him at the door with a smile and a kiss to his cheek, the rich colour of mehndi on your hands. You’re holding a plastic bag in your hands which he takes from you as you toe your shoes off and then follow him into the kitchen.

“Wedding food,” you explain when he looks through the bag and finds various sweet dishes, as well as little boxes of food and slices of wedding cake. He remembers you telling him about a distant relative’s wedding, remembers expressing his remorse about not being able to accompany you because of prior commitments.

“Thank you, Y/N,” he says, pressing a kiss to your knuckles before you both try your best to fit the food into the fridge and then head up to his bedroom after you’ve had a glass of water to quench your thirst.

“I’ve missed you,” you say once you’re there, both curled into each other, and there’s a pang in Damian’s chest. You haven’t seen each other in a while, and it’s mostly his fault, because of missions, but he knows you understand.

“I missed you too, dearly,” he responds, squeezing an arm around your waist as he presses his mouth to your forehead in a chaste kiss, lingering there for a moment so he can breathe in the scent of your shampoo.

You part after a moment or two and Damian’s eyes fall to the second bag dangling from your fingers, smaller than the first. He looks to you, a question on his tongue, but you know him and so you beat him to it.

“The last time I wore mehndi, Cass saw and wanted me to put some on her too,” you explain, reaching into the bag and pulling out a handful of mehndi cones. “So I brought some today for us to try out on her.” His heart warms at the kind gesture, and then he remembers that you’re wearing mehndi too, dark against your skin, and wants to see more of it.

“Show me,” Damian requests, looking down at the deep reddish brown staining your nails and palms. You sit down on the rug with him, placing the bag down beside you and hold your hands out in front of you with your palms up like an offering, an offering Damian will gladly accept.

He carefully takes your hands in his and studies the dark swirls on your skin, the flowers and curling lines and then— _letters_. Small and almost delicate, tucked away underneath the petal of a flower, but they’re definitely letters spelling out _his name_.

“Damian?” He hears you say, and looks up to see your face, concerned as your eyes scan over his body like you’re checking for injuries of some sort. “What’s up? You’re not hurt, are you?” You ask, frowning at him.

“It’s my name,” he blurts out, thumb tracing reverently over the letters, and your hands tense up almost imperceptibly, then start to tremble in his. Damian looks up at you, concerned when you avoid his eyes and just stare down at your joined hands, face pale other than the blotchy redness high in your cheeks.

“It’s nothing, really, just a joke,” you try to play off with a wavering smile, but Damian can see right past it. You’re nervous, maybe even a little _scared_ , and it worries Damian because he’s quite certain he hasn’t done anything to frighten you, watching carefully as you try to tug your hands away, but he holds on tight.

His eyes scan over your face, looking for any tells other than you biting your lip and blushing even more each time you meet his eyes or see his name on your hand, and that’s when it hits, and Damian can feel his own face turning red at the implication.

“It’s not—it was my cousin’s idea, not mine,” you begin to explain, still not looking at him, looking at anything _but_ him like you can’t bear to see his face as you say it. “It’s just a little wedding tradition in our culture, where the bride has mehndi applied, and then her future husband’s name or initials are hidden somewhere in the patterns and—”

“And then the groom tries to find it,” Damian finishes your sentence, unable to meet your eyes for fear of you running away after seeing the look in _his_ eyes, the want, the desire to someday take part in this tradition with _you_.

It scares him, how much he wants of you. _With_ you. But it thrills him too.

“If I’d known beforehand, I wouldn’t have let her do it, I promise,” you swear, and as hard as you might try to hide it, your voice is definitely trembling. “I only noticed afterwards, and if I’d tried to get rid of it, that would’ve just ruined the artist’s hard work and the rest of the design.”

Damian looks up at that, blinking. “Why?” is all he can get out, throat tight. His voice comes out sounding like he’s being strangled because of all that he’s holding back.

You frown, still looking down at your hands. Your cheeks are still red, and Damian wants to kiss you so badly, until they’re a rosy pink instead. “Because it’s all very intricate and close together, so trying to wipe if off would just smudge it all,” you say, clearly misunderstanding what he’s asking you.

“That’s not what—Y/N,” Damian starts, pulse racing. He’s pretty sure he’s sweating a little. He hopes he doesn’t smell. “Why would you want to get rid of it?” Damian asks, irrationally terrified that maybe you don’t want the same things he does. That you don’t want him as much as he wants you.

You finally look up at Damian with wide eyes. “I—we’re not—I guess I just assumed that it would be a bad idea to keep it there,” you say slowly as your eyes flicker over his face, hesitating on the last few words like you’re not sure that you actually want to say them to him.

He should say something. Anything.

_You assumed wrong. It wouldn’t be a bad idea. I want this. I want you._

_I love you. Always._

But instead, all that comes out is, “You know how to apply mehndi yourself, yes?”

You frown and nod, a confused look on your face at the sudden change of subject.

“I want you to put some on me. Please,” he remembers to add onto the end, and you reward him with a gentle smile, even though Damian can tell that you still don’t understand what he’s thinking.

“You’ll have to fetch me a pair of scissors then, and a few tissues. Maybe a ball pin too, if you have any,” you say as you turn away to fetch a mehndi cone, bag rustling.

Damian takes that as a dismissal and goes to follow your instructions, coming back to find you waiting for him with one of his pillows on your lap, the back of it facing up. You take the scissors from him and snip off a tiny section from the cone, then use the sharp end of the pin to pry it open slightly before holding it near the top and applying gentle pressure until a steady stream of mehndi flows from the open end of it onto a tissue.

“Right or left?” Damian looks away from your hands and into your eyes. You must be able to tell that he doesn’t know what you’re talking about, because you grin as you clarify that you’re asking which hand he wants it on. He places his left hand on the pillow.

He may have trained himself to be ambidextrous, but he uses his right hand more out of habit, and would like the stain, _your_ stain, to last as long as possible.

“You want it on your palm or the outside of your hand?” You say as you wipe the tip of the mehndi cone off and lift his hand into your own, studying it like you could find the secrets of the universe within the lines of his palm.

“Outside,” he says.

You look up at Damian with a quirked eyebrow. “Sure? What if I mess it up?”

“I trust you,” he says.

Damian swears his heart skips a beat when your mouth curls into a fond smile as you press a kiss to the centre of his palm before flipping his hand back over and placing it onto the pillow again, fingertips tracing over his scarred knuckles. “Any type of design in particular? I can freestyle or we can look up pictures on the internet if you’d like.”

“I trust you,” he repeats, and settles down to just watch as you trace out the lines of an intricate flower onto his skin, stopping in between to rub the feeling back into his hand once it starts to feel cold and a little numb. The designs on his fingers are a little simpler but no less beautiful, and each and every dot and swirl is practically perfect.

Somehow, you’ve managed to get a little bit of mehndi on your own finger. But you don’t know this, so it smudges onto your skin when you reach up to scratch the side of your nose, leaving a dark little smear on your cheek. Damian rushes to pick up a tissue and wipe it off so that the stain left behind is as faint as possible, a light orange in colour.

He ends up just looking at your face as you finish off the design, nose wrinkled in concentration, so doesn’t realise you’re done with him until he hears his name being called. Damian looks up to see you smiling at him as you wave your hands with a flourish over his.

“All done. You like it?”

“I—it’s beautiful.” He struggles to meet your eyes. “You’re very talented, beloved.”

You blush and smile even wider until your eyes are crinkling at the corners. “Thank you. Just leave it on for a while now and take it off in the evening, maybe even tomorrow morning if you’d like it to be darker. If you leave it on overnight, you’ll need to wrap your hand in cling wrap, then scrape it off in the sink, but don’t use any water.”

“But—”

“Oh, and if you want it to be darker, once you’re sure it’s completely dry, you can use a cotton ball to dab a mixture of lemon juice and sugar over it, then once it’s scraped off, rub mustard oil on your hand,” you remind Damian as you place the mehndi cone down, not even realising you just cut him off.

“Y/N, it’s not done just yet,” Damian says, breathing in deep and summoning the courage he seems to have lost after looking into your eyes.

“Oh?” You’re frowning, a quizzical little smile playing on your lips. “I’m pretty sure it is.”

“No,” he says, and his voice must be harsher than he’d expected because you just blink at him before frowning even harder, smile completely gone. It makes Damian’s heart hurt.

“Why not?”

Damian looks down at his hand, at your hard work, and notices that the centre of the flower is blank, which gives him an idea. “I want your name on me too,” he says, and it’s almost _painful_ for Damian to be so honest, even though the truth never comes to him more easily than it does when he’s with you.

You stare at him for a while, not understanding. “I want your name on my hand,” Damian clarifies, using his free hand to turn yours over and trace over the letters of his name as he looks straight into your eyes.

“ _Damian_ ,” you splutter as you try to take your hand back. He lets you this time. “This isn’t a _joke_. You doing this. I can’t—”

“Please,” he says softly, begs. Damian doesn’t usually beg for things. “It doesn’t have to be your whole name. It can just be your initials,” he tries to bargain.

“There’s nowhere to—”

“You can do it here,” Damian says, eagerly pointing to the empty centre of the flower. “Please, beloved,” he says once more in the hope that you’ll give in to his pleas.

You swallow thickly and pick up the cone again, holding his hand steady as your own fingers tremble their way through tracing your initials onto his skin, and then you let go of him like you’ve burnt yourself as he stares down at his hand, fingers hovering just above it.

“Is that okay?” You ask, uncertainty evident in your voice. He doesn’t answer, too mesmerised by what you’ve just done.

“Damian.”

Still no answer.

“Damian—”

“It’s perfect,” he cuts you off. “I love you.” Your head snaps up and Damian immediately realises his mistake. “ _It_. I love _it_.”

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

That didn’t come out right, but... _fuck it_.

“I love you,” Damian confesses, and he’s not going to look away from you now that the truth is out. He refuses to hide it any longer. Your eyes are wider than he’s ever seen them, and his heart is about to leap out of his throat.

“You... _love_ me?” You repeat, and for some reason, you look shocked. Like it’s a _surprise_ to you that Damian ended up falling in love with you, though it shouldn’t be. Damian’s quite certain that it was basically inevitable.

“I love you,” he confirms, and your face softens.

“You love me,” you repeat, with the softest of smiles. “And I love you. That’s quite convenient, isn’t it?”

Damian’s breath catches in his throat. “You love me?” He asks, just to be sure. He’d be embarrassed by the way his voice cracks if it weren’t for the fact that he’s waiting for you to say those words again, to reassure him that this isn’t just some dream of his destined to turn into a nightmare—it’s _reality_.

“I do,” you reassure him, and Damian’s heart swells until it feels like it’s almost too big for his chest, far too full of love to be contained by something so very small.

“I see,” he breathes out shakily, and you snort at him, eyes shining with laughter and—and _love_.

“You’re such a dork,” you murmur, fond. You lift a hand to cup his cheek and Damian leans into it, eyes fluttering closed for just a moment before opening again. “I basically took part in a wedding tradition for you. What about that says I _don’t_ love you?”

“Nothing. I was just... being silly, I suppose,” Damian whispers as he leans in close enough for your noses to brush, making sure to move his hand out of the way so nothing smudges. Your eyes close as you smile, bright enough that Damian has no choice other than to smile back at you, even if you can’t see it.

His fingers come up to circle your wrist, his own eyes closing as the two of you gently press your foreheads together, and then his hand is moving to keep your palm pressed to his face, fingers tangling together.

You both sit there in a comfortable silence, just existing together for a while. Damian can’t stop smiling every time he opens his eyes to peek at your face and finds you looking right back at him. His love for you makes him feel giddy with happiness, as it should.

Soon enough, his siblings come to bother the two of you. First, it’s Richard, coming to coo at how cute you both are and almost forgetting that Damian’s hand is still wet when he pulls you into a hug. And then it’s Cassandra, silently waiting for you to attend to her too with a pleased smile on her face as she notices the way you’re both looking at each other, unwilling to be parted.

Eventually you give in though, pulling Damian to his feet and opening the door for him even though he has a free hand. Perhaps it’s because you know that he wants to hold yours. Perhaps it’s because you want to hold his too.

You all gather in the kitchen, where Timothy is already waiting with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand and a tablet in the other. He lets go of both though to greet you with a hug, complimenting your own mehndi. It’s as you and Cassandra are settling into chairs and scrolling through designs on your phone for ideas that Timothy notices Damian’s hand, attentive as always.

“Is that—?” He starts to ask, looking down at your initials. Damian looks over to you, laughing at something Richard has just said as you check how much mehndi you have left in your open cone, probably wondering if you’ll have to use another one.

It might have been unintentional on your part, but you unabashedly wear Damian’s name on your hand like you don’t care about the possible consequences, if there are any, of showing people that you’re his.

“Yes,” Damian answers, turning back to face his older brother.

He’s not afraid of letting the world know that he’s yours either.

**Author's Note:**

> for more, come say hi on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/multitudinous-writes)!!


End file.
